Obituaries have been written since the 18th century to report a recent death of a person. Obituaries are often written by family members or friends as a memorial, notifying people of the death, along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. Obituaries are typically published in newspapers and paid for by the family of the deceased. Publishing an obituary in a newspaper can be very costly, typically averaging between $250-500, with some costing upwards of a 1000$. People are often charged to post the obituary, charged to buy the newspaper and charged to read it online, with the newspaper reaping all the benefits for publishing a simple article. Families frequently elect not to run an obituary or are required to shorten the length due to costs. Additionally, newspaper obituaries are not up-to-date, meaning it may take a few days or up to a week for someone to show up in an obituary after their death. Another problem with newspaper obituaries is that the number of readers is decreasing every year, while the costs are increasing. The present invention addresses this problem and provides a cheaper and up-to-date obituary service for people all across the world.
Another problem with the current system of death notices is that they are very territorial. Publishing an obituary in a local newspaper only notifies people within that specific area, therefore family and friends not within that area will not know that a loved one has passed. Additionally, a large number of areas do not have a daily newspaper. The present invention provides a more widespread obituary service that notifies the people connected to the deceased, whether it be friends, family or simply an acquaintance no matter their location. The present invention is a central site comprising a database of authentic and up-to-date obituaries which displays said obituaries based on the location of the viewer or the preferences entered by the viewer. Additionally, the present invention also utilizes a notification system that notifies users of obituaries that meet a set of pre-configured criteria, such as a last name or a specific location.
Current websites and methods that aim to accomplish similar objectives as the present invention fall short in various ways. First, these sites rely on obtaining obituaries from external sources such as newspapers. Individuals are still required to pay the absurd prices newspapers charge in order to publish an obituary. Although there are options that allow an individual to post an obituary onto the site for a flat fee, there are problems associated with this method. A problem with this is that premature obituaries may be posted, or a false report of a death. The present invention is connected directly with funeral home directors in order to reduce any chances of a premature obituary being posted. Additionally, the present invention is purely based on the information provided by funeral homes and not newspapers. This is essentially a network for funeral home directors to post obituaries that are uploaded immediately, reducing costs for families and distributes the profits among the funeral home directors which are currently being hoarded by newspaper companies. In another embodiment of the present invention, the same method and system may be applied to births. Rather than funeral homes posting death notices, hospitals will be able to post birth notices, utilizing the same implementation mentioned above.